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When a man took a picture up Gina Martin's skirt when she was enjoying herself at a festival, she was sure he could be punished.

However, after being told he did nothing illegal, she has taken things into her own hands and started a campaign which has reverberated across the country - to make 'upskirting' a specific offence under the law.

'Upskirting' is the term for when people put cameras under unsuspecting women's skirts and take a picture of their crotch, usually just before the woman notices what has happened.

On the 8th July 2017, this happened to Ms Martin, who was at the British Summertime Festival.

Her petition

After seeing the man standing in front of her had an image of a woman’s bare legs and crotch on his phone screen, she realised it was of her.

She thought quickly and grabbed the phone, giving it to the festival staff, who called the police.

The police arrived and asked the man to delete the photo. However, five days later, Ms Martin was told the case was closed as the police said the man hadn't broken any laws.

Men who have taken 'upskirt' photographs have been prosecuted before under different laws.

If Ms Martin had been in a place which would reasonably be expected to provide privacy, such as her home or a changing room, it could amount to voyeurism under section 67 of the Sexual Offences Act.

However, a festival field would not fit under the remit of this law.

'Upskirting' can also come under the criminal offence of "outraging public decency" if two or more people see the photograph - but in Ms Miller's case, no such charge was made.

The Metropolitan Police said in a statement: "The Met takes allegations of voyeurism seriously and does and will investigate them thoroughly. We use a range of policing tactics and deploy officers on specific operations to target this sort of criminal behaviour based on intelligence. We understand that it can be incredibly invasive and distressing for those that this happens to.

"In this specific case we believed the allegation had originally been dealt with in line with the victim's wishes. We have subsequently recontacted the victim and inquiries are ongoing."

Ms Martin also doesn't think it is good enough that it can only fall under outraging public decency to take a photograph up a woman's skirt.

She told the BBC: "I found out that the one law I could charge under was an old common law called "outraging public decency" - a law that states something lewd or indecent happened in public and at least two people saw it. Ironically, it is usually applied to flashers. So, to put it plainly, the only law that protects a victim of upskirting in England and Wales is one that worries about what the public saw, not the victim who's been harassed.

"It's an old law too - victims don't push for it because they don't know about it. If they had known about that law would the police have dealt with my case differently?

"Something has to change here, and that's why I'm campaigning to make upskirt photography a sexual offence. Scotland just did it. So we could too.

"My case has since been reopened and I hope that the men are prosecuted. But this isn't just about my case. My next step is to have the laws amended so that upskirt photos are listed as a sexual offence and a "victim crime", not a public nuisance."

Since she started her petition, the Metropolitan Police re-opened her case.

The Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Dame Vera Baird told the Today programme on Saturday that upskirting “needs to be an offence, there is no doubt about it”.